Blog

Here's a link to a fantastic reel from our friends at Displace Studios, they worked with us earlier this year to create some eye popping 3D brand furniture for our new website and other collateral. They did an amazing job for us and I wish them every luck with this new venture.

We said it was going to be tough to judge and we were right. The entries for this year’s CG Whiz competition blew us away (quite literally!) and the quality of the reels overall impressed each and every judge.

Have any of you been watching Wallace and Gromit’s new program on BBC1? It’s basically like a new version of Tomorrow’s World with Wallace acting as the presenter and Gromit taking the role of the funny side-kick.

I was just looking over some of the people in our alumni group on LinkedIn and it was great to see the amazing list of companies Escapees are working at. To the have the CG industries peppered with so many people from our courses is a great feeling and we'd love to hear from anyone who isn't in the group so we can see where you are and what you've been up to.

We’re eight days into this year’s CG Whiz competition, and we’ve been amazed by the quality and number of entries through the door so far. It’s going to be a tough one to judge and to think we’ve still got three weeks to go to see what talent’s out there.

A couple of weeks ago, we featured the work of Tracey Chung, who recently completed our Character Animation course. Tracey has been very busy since then working on her showreel, and we will keep you updated on her progress. But what I want to share with you today is a bunch of illustrations that Tracey created one day when she was clearly missing us all at Escape.

When Nik Illingworth came to an Open Day last year, he was brimming with CG enthusiasm. He knew that he wanted a career in VFX but didn't really know how he was going to make it happen. After studying for 12 weeks with us, Nik was up and running. He finished his course, was offered his first job at Frametore and accepted it, then a short while later he decided to come back to us for 6 weeks of final professional training. He's now Effects Technical Director at MPC and still has the same love for the industry that he started off with. Nik's is one of many stories of CG enthusiasts who come to study with us and that's why we wanted to share his case study with you - getting a career in VFX off the ground really is easier than you think.

Here's my final post showing some work from the courses which have just finished. These clips are from escapees who were on the Visual Effects Production course taught by Dan Shutt. Again these are 'work in progress' and need a little more polishing but you can see they are both great ideas that have been really well executed.

Last week, I promised to share with you some more of the work that our students have presented to us at the end of their courses. This time, I have decided to show you the work of Tracey Chung, who recently completed our Character Animation course taught by Alex Williams.

If you are a user of any software package you'll know that at least once a year software developers deliver an update. Autodesk's Maya 2011 was no exception. 3D users had become accustomed to Maya's UI over the last 10 years but Autodesk thought it was time for a change, enter Maya 2011. So this release brings all sorts of challenges for the diehard Maya user, it has a new interface... I hear the screams of "where did you put that" and "what on earth does this icon represent"!

Firstly, a big thanks to everyone who has entered our CG Graduate Design Competition Award so far. Entries have been coming thick and fast and as always the standard has been exceptional.

Thanks also for keeping in touch via all our social networks - it really is great to hear from you all and it just reaffirms our belief that the UK and the US have a wealth of talent and will undoubtedly produce many future stars in the CG world.

Everyone who studies with us knows how much emphasis we place on our close ties with the industry. The members of our advisory board include some of the biggest names in CG, and they advise on everything from course content to placing escapees in work after they graduate. We are therefore very pleased to announce that Christian Roberton, MD of Film at MPC, has joined the team.

Now almost as hyped an event as the World Cup itself, the Nike ad this year starred a host of big names, from our own Wayne Rooney through to Franck Ribiery of France, Italy’s Fabio Cannavaro and even shiny Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal. Most people will have seen at least one of the shorter clips, if not the full thing, and the eagle eyed among you will know that the guys at the Mill were on hand to provide the VFX wizardry.

It’s been pretty busy for Nik since completing his VFX course a few weeks back. After a stint at Atticus Finch and then Framestore he’s now working at legendary post house MPC. We caught up with Nik, sat him down, and asked him what it’s like being the new FX TD on the block.